Day 40: 2 Samuel 1:1–27

“The splendor of Israel lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!” (v. 19).

Second Samuel begins with David and his men’s return from rescuing their families from the Amalekites. A young man who happened to be an Amalekite living in Israel arrived from the battle scene on Mount Gilboa. In his hands he carried the crown and armband of Saul. In his heart he carried dreams of reward. If he had known the heart and character of the man to whom he spoke, he would have behaved differently.

The young man told David that Saul and his sons were dead. He went on to claim that he had seen the wounded Saul and finished him off personally. He offered the articles from Saul as proof. Have you ever heard the saying, “He lies when the truth would fit better”? If a literal example of this expression ever existed, this is it. The messenger didn’t get the result he had imagined.

Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword (2 Sam. 1:11–12).

The passage does not tell us how quickly David dealt with the messenger, but I wonder: If David grieved until evening before he responded, did the man begin to have misgivings? Few people living in the Middle East would have failed to hear rumors of Saul’s pursuit of David. Many must have followed them as closely as a faithful watcher of a modern soap opera. People love conflict. We love reading about it and hearing about it. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine giant, the women met King Saul singing: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (1 Sam. 18:7). Those women started a jealousy that cost both men dearly.

Many days later, as the deceitful Amalekite lay slain at David’s feet, that little song had caused another casualty. The opportunist was hoping he’d find favor with David by claiming he had taken the life of Saul. He was dead wrong. David poured out his love for Jonathan—and for Saul, in spite of all the years the mad king’s jealousy had cost him. He wrote the lament that appears in 2 Samuel 1:19–27. Look at some of David’s words of grief:

O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields that yield offerings of grain. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled (v. 21).

Saul and Jonathan—in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions (v. 23).

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women (v. 26).

In David’s song of lament, his words suddenly turned from the refrain of the assembly to the grief of a single heart: “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother.” The Hebrew word for brother in this verse was ach. It meant “a brother, near relative. Ach is any person or thing which is similar to another. It is generally a term of affection.”14 One was a shepherd; the other a prince. Yet they were “one in spirit” (1 Sam. 18:1). They were brothers.

David called his friend’s love “wonderful” (v. 26). David distinguished the sacrificial nature of this friendship from anything else anyone had ever demonstrated to him. So determined was Jonathan that David be king, a position Jonathan stood to inherit, that he committed his entire life to that end. David found it astonishing.

I know what it’s like to lose a best friend. My buddy and I were absolutely inseparable. We dressed alike, cut our hair alike, shared a locker, and had endless sleepovers. I had lots of boyfriends as a teenager, but I only had one best friend. Her name was Dodie. One day she dropped by the house to pick me up for a bite to eat. My parents would not let me go because we were preparing to leave town. Dodie never came back. Within half an hour, I heard the blood-curdling siren of an ambulance. I can hardly talk about it even today. I still visit her grave. I still ache for our friendship.

David grieved the tragic loss of life that took place on Mount Gilboa. His thoughts must have been consumed with how differently he wished it had all happened. Not coincidentally, the next chapter begins with the words, “In the course of time, David . . .” We share a moment of his grief when we see these words. Yes, some things just take “the course of time.”